For many years, it has been desired to produce a convergence of the TV with online commerce so that TV viewers at home or at other viewing locations can order goods or services or make reservations or bookings online while watching TV. The capability to order online while watching TV has the advantage that items seen on TV but subject to real-time availability can be requested and ordered from current inventory and confirmed on the TV. Furthermore, it has been desired to carry out such “t-commerce” using a standard TV remote control unit, without having to work at a keyboard of a PC or other computer device. Such a t-commerce convergence system would have the potential to greatly increase the value of TV advertising and the volume of sales or bookings made while watching TV ads.
Telephone ordering by calling vendors on their “800” numbers has long been used in conjunction with TV promotions and product advertising. However, the TV promotions and advertising must be pre-recorded and scheduled in the TV programming far in advance, and therefore the system does not have the flexibility to provide TV viewers with up-to-the-moment information on availability of products or currently offered discounts. Also, in order to avoid long waiting times for callers on the telephone, the vendors must operate multi-line phone banks to handle the surges of customer call-ins during ad runtimes, thus making this type of system uneconomic for smaller vendors.
In other attempts at TV/online commerce convergence, cable TV systems have offered “TV shopping malls” on a special channel where viewers can order simple items such as pizza for delivery. Viewers can enter their selection using the standard TV remote control to send signals to the set-top box unit which are transmitted to the cable TV server headend and then forwarded from the cable headend to the vendor along with the TV viewer's name/address or phone number (a vendor callback is required) for delivery. However, this type of cable TV order-forwarding system is slow, cumbersome, and can handle only limited types of items that cannot readily be changed or updated unless the shopping mall channel is frequently reprogrammed. Moreover, for offering items from a plurality of vendors, the cable TV system must first establish each vendor's ordering system on its headend platform, which makes the system inconvenient or uneconomical for smaller vendors or vendors with items of constantly changing types or availability.
A similar type of cable TV order-forwarding system uses video-on-demand (VOD) channels in the cable TV lineup to allow a viewer to navigate to an advertisement or infomercial of interest then press a button on the remote control unit to send a request for more product information to be sent to the cable subscriber's address or a callback to the subscriber's phone number. This type of system might also be used to enable the TV viewer to make purchases and have them charged to the their cable TV subscriber billing account. However, this type of VOD order-forwarding system only allows ordering of items pre-programmed and scheduled in advance as VOD advertising or infomercials and cannot readily be changed or updated unless the video-on-demand channels are frequently reprogrammed.
Another previous attempt was the so-called “two-screen TV” system in which viewers watched TV for advertising of product promotions or discounts and then used their computers with online connectivity to visit the vendors websites to complete their orders or entries. This type of system required both the TV and computer to be located in the same room and was very cumbersome to use and of limited interest to TV viewers.
Another type of so-called “Internet TV” system employs a co-located Internet server with online connectivity at the cable TV headend so that interactive webpages can be displayed in a browser channel on the TV, and viewers can navigate and enter input in response to the webpages using their TV remote control unit or a provided keyboard for ordering items online. However, the cable TV operators have resisted subsidizing the co-location of third-party equipment on their facilities to enable external purchases through their system, and therefore the providers of such “Internet TV” services have found it difficult to recover their costs of providing browser-enabled set-top boxes and keyboards for TV customers and co-located headend equipment.
It has also been desired to enable guests staying at hotels to reserve or book activities for sightseeing or entertainment at the travel destination. When not on business travel, hotel guests most often do not bring along laptop computers for Internet access. Many hotels do not offer in-room Internet-access equipment and/or charge high fees for Internet connectivity. Vendors of local activities are typically many smaller companies that cannot pay for the costs of online ordering systems in hotel rooms, and their activities are subject to constantly changing inventory (ticket or seat) availability as well as date or time-sensitive pricing or discounting. As a result, vendors typically are compelled to distribute their inventories of activities through telephone-order processing wholesalers at heavily discounted block pricing. Enabling hotel guests to order or book activities through direct online access to vendors' inventories from the in-room hotel TV would not only raise vendor profitability, but would also have the advantage for guests of being able to access up-to-date information on availability and current pricing and to automatically receive a TV display confirmation without having to call an 800 number and waiting to speak to an agent.